Snapshots of a Life Not Lived
by aRegularJo
Summary: Pretty simple: Kate lives. Interconnected standalones exploring how the last six years would have been different. Still a Ziva, probably some Tiva.


_Hey there!  
_So I have not written, in, oh, basically forever, and I should warn you up front: This is not plotted out. This does not have a theme, or some big emotional twists. Besides being nonlinear, this is pretty straightforward. And also fluffy.

What this is is my answer to a What If: What if Kate had lived? The basic premise (and we'll go back to season 3) is that Kate didn't die. She was still targeted by Ari, she was still shot, but her skull was not blown out, as you'll see. However, she still decided to quit the team (you'll see why), leaving an opening for Ziva to fill. So Ziva comes on, and some things stay the same, and some things are different. It's not heavy, it's not going to end with the world out to have needed Kate to die, or whatever, but it is going to be a fun exploration of what would have happened if Tony had had Kate around.

A note: I started watching in season 3, and then after watching seasons 3-9 I went back and saw 1 and 2. I liked the Kate/Tony banter, but did ultimately see it as pretty brother/sister, which this will reflect. But let's begin!

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_May 2009_

The hospital was busy, bustling, even though it was past 11. Without consulting the directory, Tony punched 9, humming nervously as the elevator ascended and mentally ticking off the dings as floors were passed. Flowers in his good hand, he strolled through the corridor, nodding at nurses but didn't quite making eye contact. Abby had given him the room number; hospitals were much easier to navigate than naval destroyers. It wasn't too hard to find his destination. He was weary, wary, but he had to be here.

When he arrived he paused in the open doorway, just to watch for a second. To his surprise, Kate was up, the kid cradled in her arms, clearly nursing. A lamp on the other side of the table set her off in bas relief, and the scene — mom and kid — looked like something off a Hallmark card or one of those terrible Lifetime flicks. Clearly, the moment needed to be ruined.

"I knew I'd get to see your boobs one day," he said, announcing his presence.

She turned, momentary annoyance written all over her face, but something made her pause. Crap. Clearly she could see straight through him, knew he was deflecting. "Real mature, Tony," she snapped back half-heartedly, for his sake. "You realize this is what they're intended to do?" Then she smiled. "Here. Come meet Ava."

Laughing, he came closer, kissed her temple. Setting the flowers on the table beside her — she saw them and smiled tiredly — he sat beside her as she covered up, still cradling the baby close. "Ava, huh?" he said, peering at the kid. She was tiny, with a shock of thick auburn curls pressed down onto her skull and beady blue eyes yawning shut. She was pretty freaking adorable. "So does that hurt?" he said conversationally, nodding towards her breasts. He'd always wondered.

She grimaced. "It's uncomfortable, right now. There's — there's no milk, yet, _exactly_, it's this … It's thicker, so it's harder to get out. And it's just kind of a weird feeling. But it's not _painful_. What happened to you?" she said, slightly alarmed, as she nodded to his arm. "You can't hold her."

It was his turn to make a face. "Yeah. Sorry, Uncle Tony can't take diaper duty for the next few weeks. I actually planned it that way," he joked.

Her eyes narrowed and she sighed, worried. "Abby came by this afternoon, right after she was born, said that you were in Israel with Ziva and Gibbs and it was bad karma to talk about it around the baby. What happened?"

"It's a long story," he sighed, wanting desperately to talk about Kate's six-hour-old baby.

"Tony," she said, annoyed, "I spent 36 hours in labor. I just pushed a screaming, tiny human the size of a small bowling ball out of my vagina, and then I've had a mutant alien sucking at my chest since then. Come on. What's up?"

"Where's Scotty?" he deflected.

"I sent Scott home — we take Ava home tomorrow, so one of us should get some sleep tonight," she said. "Tony. Answer the question. Did you get shot in Israel?" her eyes roved over him, checking for signs of a bullet wound.

"No," he sighed. "Remember Ziva's boyfriend?"

"Michael? Yes," she said, very obviously gearing up to yell at him for being a tool, or whatever. She'd lectured him before about interfering in Ziva's life. He cut her off, though.

"We got into a fight. In Ziva's apartment, about four days ago."

"So you had to go to Israel to have Ziva's dad solve it? She's not chattel, for crying out loud. She can solve her own problems."

He snorted, rubbing his sternum unconsciously. "That's not why we went to Israel. He's dead."

"Ziva's dad?"

"No, Michael."

"How?"

"We got in a fight."

"And you _killed _him?"

"Hey, it was either that or he was going to kill me."

She nodded, believing him entirely, and he was grateful. So much easier than Ziva. "So you went to Israel?"

"Daddy David was not happy that her gorilla-y movie-cop partner got the drop on his prized krav maga-ing assassin."

"You are not a gorilla-y movie cop, and it's time you stopped pretending you were," she paused, softening. "How are things between you and Ziva?"

"Well, Katie Couric, she's just a little pissed at me. And by a little pissed, I mean she decided to stay in Israel so that she never has to see me again."

"She's just confused," Kate said immediately. 'She'll come back."

"No," he sighed, "she won't. Not this time, Kate." And truthfully, if she stayed safe, he would be OK with that. He was pissed as all hell at her now, but if she never spoke to him again, he was fine, as long as she was safe. He hadn't gotten almost killed for her to just run off and get shot.

Kate shook her head. "She's angry now" — _understatement_, he thought — "but she also knows, deep down, that you wouldn't murder anyone. She," and her Kate gave him that studied one-eyed look she'd perfected whenever they'd spoken about Ziva over the years, "she's your partner, Tony."

He shook her words off, ran his finger down the now-sleeping baby's cheek. "So this one," he said, changing the subject, "is absolutely gorgeous. Tell me, now, how many bones in Scott's hands did you break?"

And with that, she launched happily into the story of Ava's birth. And Tony smiled, because at least something good and not overwhelmingly crappy had happened in the last 36 hours.

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